[sims] Admitting students now

[Steven_Cleaver]

Are there any issues with admitting students now and just setting there start day for September.

[PhilNeal]

It's not recommended as you will be issuing admission numbers to pupils that won't turn up. You will then probably delete them leading to gaps in the adno sequence. I know some add on products rely on schools doing this but it isn't good practice.

[Ditto]

I'm not on SIMS, but there's no way I'd have time to set up all the teaching groups, registration groups, house groups, email groups, print timetables, set up parent contact details and much, much more waiting until the start of term. The loss of a few internal admissions numbers would be of no consequence to us and there's no value for us with them being in sequence. We might wait to set up new UPN's until the start of term, but not much else. How is this managed in the SIMS world as there is a chance I'll be reviewing the wider product next year anyway.

[Cache]

I'm not on SIMS, but there's no way I'd have time to set up all the teaching groups, registration groups, house groups, email groups, print timetables, set up parent contact details and much, much more waiting until the start of term. The loss of a few internal admissions numbers would be of no consequence to us and there's no value for us with them being in sequence. We might wait to set up new UPN's until the start of term, but not much else. How is this managed in the SIMS world as there is a chance I'll be reviewing the wider product next year anyway.

 

But all of that you do within pre-admissions, all our september starters are currently allocated to reg groups and houses setup ready to go. Once the timetable is sent across tomorrow they will all be allocated to the correct teaching groups and classes and then over the summer will have their timetables printed off ready for the first day in September.

 

Then once they turn up on the day in September, we will admit them.

[Max_Power]

We do this in order to generate accounts for parentpay so parents can buy bus tickets, uniform and lunches before their son/daughter starts in September.

 

It works.... but as Phil mentioned it can get a little messy if students who were due to start in September, in actual fact don't.

[GREED]

We do this in order to generate accounts for parentpay so parents can buy bus tickets, uniform and lunches before their son/daughter starts in September.

 

It works.... but as Phil mentioned it can get a little messy if students who were due to start in September, in actual fact don't.

Parent Pay can only deal with on roll students?

[Edu-IT]

Parent Pay can only deal with on roll students?

No not from memory.

[Max_Power]

We admit students in order to generate the UPN, my understanding is that Parent Pay relies on that number, and that number can only be generated once the pupil is admitted? Once admitted we import into PP as a pre admission and give the parents the details.

[GREED]

That will be fun then given the other threads here talking about UPN use. As an ID, there are other choices, and ones that do not rely on admitting students early

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

Our LA tell schools not to admit students as it play havoc with B2B. The way they explained it to me is that effectively you are saying that the admitted student is now your responsibility but you are delaying their start (admission date in the future) and the school they are currently at is also saying they are their responsibility, so if for example a student gives different details that they wanted to have a different preferred name at the new school then it created a conflict in B2B where 2 schools both with responsibility are providing contradictory information. Therefore to stop this and may other conflicts occurring our schools are advised to never 'admit' students early.

[GREED]

Therefore to stop this and may other conflicts occurring our schools are advised to never 'admit' students early.

 

Surely the hint is in the name - admit.

[Ditto]

We admit students in order to generate the UPN, my understanding is that Parent Pay relies on that number, and that number can only be generated once the pupil is admitted? Once admitted we import into PP as a pre admission and give the parents the details.

Direct quote from ParentPay support just under a month ago.

 

"An upload can be uploaded with a UPN OR an admission number, so as long as we have one or the other the upload will go through."

 

We are a progresso school, will have pupils on the system with a status of 'Draft' but they have a unique Learner ID which suffices. For us I guess that's effectively the admissions number but we don't really have or need such a concept.

[Ditto]

No not from memory.

It does for us as a progresso school, but we just upload a spreadsheet - no API used. I guess it's different in the SIMS world?

[Ditto]

Interesting this concept of 'admitted' is not something I've given much thought to. Could you elaborate? For me in the progresso world, we put pupils on the system once they've said they are joining. They all have a status of 'Draft' at this point. Of course some decide not to join at the last minute and a few more don't even tell us they've decide to go elsewhere. On the first day of term, the status changes from 'Draft' to 'Active'. At this point they are regarded as on roll.

[PhilNeal]

The regulations require a school to admit children and issue admission numbers. There used to be a requirement to write names in the admission register!

[djrscally]

The regulations require a school to admit children and issue admission numbers. There used to be a requirement to write names in the admission register!

Right, but there's no problem with doing that before the day they walk through the door surely? I'm also kind of intrigued by this one; in Progresso and Facility they just have an Active/Draft flag and if they don't turn up, you hit the delete button and they're gone.

[PhilNeal]

If a child isn't actually in the school yet it isn't right to issue an admission number. Whilst the number of no shows is normally low it will still lead to false information being recorded i.e. Your school records will show that a child has been admitted when the truth is they haven't. There is a health & safety issue here too in terms of unaccounted children - your records could just lead to a child remaining missing in education.

[djrscally]

If a child isn't actually in the school yet it isn't right to issue an admission number. Whilst the number of no shows is normally low it will still lead to false information being recorded i.e. Your school records will show that a child has been admitted when the truth is they haven't. There is a health & safety issue here too in terms of unaccounted children - your records could just lead to a child remaining missing in education.

Whilst they're in Draft status, our records show that they have been allocated. They show the student has been admitted when they walk through the door and we mark them as Active. There's a clear way to distinguish which students are in fact on roll, so I don't really see a problem giving them a learner number to make the administration of the intake easier by spreading out the workload of it.

[Ditto]

The regulations require a school to admit children and issue admission numbers. There used to be a requirement to write names in the admission register!

 

Even more intriguing. I might need to speak to our admissions lady! Although we are a Free School, for the main intake we get admission centrally from the LA (Surrey) via SAM. Outside of that (in-year) that we run our own admissions. It's basically a spreadsheet with some funky scripting to work the admission criteria. I don't think we've ever sent an admissions number to a parent. Perhaps the LA does for the main application? I presume the regs for this are the same as those for the attendance register?

[Steven_Cleaver]

Until this year we just set Students as Accepted rather than Admitted as this was all that was required in Parent Pay along with the student having a UPN, this has seemed to work ok, for various reasons we have Admitted Students this Year with future start date so am just trying to work out what issues we may run into thanks for all the feedback this has been really useful.

[Banjo]

Interesting this concept of 'admitted' is not something I've given much thought to. Could you elaborate? For me in the progresso world, we put pupils on the system once they've said they are joining. They all have a status of 'Draft' at this point. Of course some decide not to join at the last minute and a few more don't even tell us they've decide to go elsewhere. On the first day of term, the status changes from 'Draft' to 'Active'. At this point they are regarded as on roll.

 

Admitting is like putting them 'on roll' and requiring an attendance mark. Ideally this should be done on the first day back in Sept.

[djrscally]

Admitting is like putting them 'on roll' and requiring an attendance mark. Ideally this should be done on the first day back in Sept.

Ah, ok. Not used SIMS in any detail so didn't know it worked like that. Do they not get a number before that happens then?

[PhilNeal]

Not an admission number. This isn't SIMS specific - its the regulation.

[Ditto]

I've scanned through the 2014 School Admissions Code (noted it's not the regs) but can't find anything. Before I go trawling through the legal papers, could you fast track me - I suspect it's in the Regs that cover attendance registers. Also, isn't the the term 'admission number' for a pupil likely to cause confusion as the same term is used for the PAN(Published Admission Number).

[winng]

As the Admission Number is school-specific I can't see any reason not to issue them by Admitting them or otherwise as it's the UPN which is unique to each student and stays with them throughout their school life.